Anonymous Toil

Only gradually do you come to appreciate that the occupation you aspire to is harder than you thought, that the supply of other young, self-anointed apples of their own eyes is inexhaustible, and that you’re not as uniquely gifted as you’d thought,” she says. Far better to spend ten years “fetching lattes” than fall victim to a big break: “It’s surely a fine emotional art – dousing your hollow hauteur without quenching the fire in your belly altogether – but the kids who master it come out the other side both shit-hot at their professions and bearable as human beings”